Just coming in on the news... Ivan Basso (winner of last years Giro d'Italia) has admitted to the Italian Olympic Committee that he was involved in the blood doping scandel in which blood bags from prominent professional cyclists were found in the Laboratory of Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes.

Jan Ulrich was also discussed heavily in this forum in the past, apparently new evidence against him is coming shortly from Switzerland. Quoted in European news is that up to 100 riders who would normally participate in the 2007 Tour de France have patient records with the Spanish doctor. Based upon what happens next with Basso and forthcoming evidence, the Tour de France could run an entirely different field of riders than expected.

I think cycling is a lot like swimming in many ways. Heaps of training, little separates the good from the great. People don;t stay at the top for long. I don;t want to justify what cheaters have done but I can understand why they do it.

Especially those who rise to fame off their own bat, then their form slides. THe pressure of the media and their fans must be enourmouse. Everyone imagins that they are that person at their peak, all the time.

I feel sorry for them. Maybe there should be another grade for them. i.e.;

D Grade
C Grade
B Grade
A Grade
Elite Cyclists
Elite Cyclists on dope

Then it could be out in the open and they can race against other dopers.

Yes it's all very sad, not that I've ever taken drugs of course well not those ones, then again I was'nt so much a proffesional cyclist as a proffesional party animal.
It is sad but I think most of the time the dope takers think they'll get away with it and upto now many of them have. I guess now testing will become alot stricter and less open to tampering. At the end of the day it should be fair to everyone.

I saw a snippet on the news tonight, it was then that i understood the term blood doping properly. Seems that athletes are having their blood taken and stored for when a major event comes up then have it pumped back into their bodies to increase the total amount of blood improving oxygen uptake and delivery and hence performance.

At first i thought how are they going to be able to detect that! but then all that extra blood must increase blood pressure so any sharp increase above normal levels would register as an anomaly, i wonder if it was whole blood or processed blood with a high red blood cell count.

Using an autogenous (blood from your own body) transfusion is definitely hard to prove definitively, which is why they do it I guess. Under stress these extra cells will last as little as 3 days in some cases, so if a test returned a higher than normal haematocrit and thus suspicion of blood doping, monitoring of it over the next few days could give a further indication if it declined rapidly. Saying that, I am not sure that there is any definitive testing for this and that evidence of these transfusions taking place is required generally.

Ordinary pain killers such as panadol or aspirin (or most non-steroidal anti-inflammatories) are not prohibited, nor is codeine. Stronger opioid pain killers are prohibited however, as are cortisone based anti-inflammatories administered systemically.

Imanewbie wrote:I saw a snippet on the news tonight, it was then that i understood the term blood doping properly. Seems that athletes are having their blood taken and stored for when a major event comes up then have it pumped back into their bodies to increase the total amount of blood improving oxygen uptake and delivery and hence performance.

At first i thought how are they going to be able to detect that! but then all that extra blood must increase blood pressure so any sharp increase above normal levels would register as an anomaly, i wonder if it was whole blood or processed blood with a high red blood cell count.

Wow! Thanks for highlighting that. I didn't know that that was possible. I'm tempted to go to the blood bank now...to make a withdrawal...is that allowed???

MichaelB wrote:Speaking of TdF, what is the latest with Floyd Landis - has he been done for good, or is it still in the courts ?

Why do you want to know? I couldn't care less. The more spin doctoring he use for his community based defence, the more I think he is guilty. And given it's in the US court system, let's just say it'll be a while...

Hi Guys,
Like everything, anabolic steroid use has it's advantages...... and I think the guys on it have a HUGE advantage!
No, not as a performance enhancer, but because it shrivels their "family jewels" so much that they can get much more comfortable in the saddle with so little to get in the way! Hehehe!!
Wayne

I didn't actually realise that blood doping was illegal until the raid in Spain, I thought is was common practice for athletes. The problem with sport and legal and illegal performance enhancement is that a sportperson works primarily for a set goal and to acheive this goal will take all legal measures. This makes sense as well however the enticement of non-legal and new performance enhancing methods is significant when you don't know what your competitors are doing or how many seconds you actually need to win.

There are a lot of grey areas regarding testing for blood doping as many atheletes have proven in the past that even a simple asprin can affect a read-out and therefor make the actual test results unclear.

I often think about what new methods are being developed and being used by professional athletes that are not yet able to be tested.

Mulger bill wrote:AFAIK, they used concentrated red cells, it boosts the haematocrit like a dose of EPO. It's been used in endurance sports for years.

Does use of ordinary painkillers during an event have a performance enhancing effect?

I'm not sure about elite athletes but after seeing the results of a study that looked into the benefits of taking 1 asprin daily i have started this in addition to the omega3 and B group supplement. The effects of the asprin are not that noticeable but with the omega3 supplement i could feel some benefits, sounds weird i know but i felt fitter after a week. Both the asprin and the omega3 have effects on the blood, the asprin thins it and the omega3 reduces its stickiness. When i'm cycling up hills i definitely notice the difference, the blood doesn't pound away like it used to, though i am sure my increasing fitness plays a part in this.

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